Yankee Candles have inadvertently become a surprisingly effective COVID-19 surveillance tool throughout the pandemic. Now cases are threatening to rise again, so too are unfairly harsh reviews claiming the scenting candles don’t smell of anything.
Way back in November 2020, Twitter users noticed that the scented candles were receiving a lot of one-star Amazon reviews around the time many people were catching COVID-19, a disease known for its ability to dampen sufferers’ sense of smell.
Drewtoothpaste, one of Twitter’s leading experts of candle-based disease surveillance, has recently noticed a fresh batch of one-star reviews, just as the US appears to be at the start of another uptick in case numbers.
"This candle barely has any scent. I just bought the same candle about a month before and it was cheaper and had a fantastic vanilla scent and lasted long. What happened?" one review reads.
Reviewer, you might want to order some COVID tests.
No doubt people typing in our comments will point out that correlation doesn't equal causation and this link shouldn’t be considered strictly scientific. Yep that’s true, but scientists have previously crunched some of the data on Twitter and found there is a very tight relationship between the emergence of COVID-19 and the declining reviews for candles. Most notably, the drop-off in ratings was far steeper for scented candles than unscented candles.
Anosmia, or loss of sense of smell, is a well-known COVID-19 symptom, but scientists have only just gotten to grips with how the virus causes this curious side effect. In a study published last month, researchers found that SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t actually infect the neurons that detect odors, but attacks the adjacent cells, causing genetic changes that also impact olfactory sensory neurons, altering their function.
The result is a loss of sense of smell or even “olfactory hallucinations” whereby people smell odors that aren’t really there. Fortunately, most people's sense of smell tends to return after the infection is dealt with. It’s hoped the reputation of deliciously scented candles also returns to normal after some time of recovery too, but researchers are still waiting for clear answers on that.
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